Sponsored by:

People are always interested to know what my secret to success is, and what makes a Pimlico plumber in some way different from any other plumber. The answer is hard to put into words, since it's like asking Warren Buffett why he was prepared to shell out £18bn to buy Heinz, when other bean canners were available, and for a damn sight less money.

We all know that "Beanz Meanz Heinz" was a result of a ridiculously successful advertising campaign dreamed up, as legend has it, by Maurice Drake in 1967 over a couple of pints in a Victoria pub. But even back then – 46 years ago – this slogan was only stating what people already knew: when someone said baked beans, people automatically thought Heinz.

And while it would sound pretty cool for me to say now that when I started out in the plumbing business my plan was to become the Heinz baked beans of the plumbing world, it would be a barefaced lie. And I suspect it was no-more true for Henry Heinz when he founded his food company in 1869. But he, like me, I'm sure, set out to run the best operation he knew how, which in 1901 led to the introduction of the best, most popular beans ever baked, tinned and smothered in tomato sauce.

To begin with, I did my apprenticeship and learned my trade as a plumber and gas engineer, during which time I learned a lot about what people thought about plumbers, even if at the time I didn't realise it. But when you tell people you are training to be a plumber and their immediate response is some kind of reference to Dick Turpin, you are bound to pick up the idea that your chosen profession isn't exactly held in high esteem. I wanted to tell people I wasn't like that – who wouldn't? And the best way to do that was to buck the stereotype, by doing a good, honest job.

It worked. People told their friends and neighbours about me, and things started to snowball. Back in those early days, I was working a lot in Pimlico, and people started calling me "the Pimlico Plumber". So when I had to come up with a name for my fledgling company in 1979, Pimlico Plumbers came into being. In a way, that was when my version of the famous Heinz baked bean tin was born; before that I was a decent plumber, but after I left a customer's home, I was just that funny Cockney bloke with a bag of tools. Now I had a banner, the catchy name "Pimlico Plumbers", to stick in people's minds, long after they had forgotten my name.

Since then, increasingly the marketing of Pimlico Plumbers has become all about cramming all the positive aspects of our unique service into the brand, like so many beans in a tin. The thought is that whenever someone hears the name, sees our logo, or spots a Pimlico Plumbers van that all the good things that we have packed into our name will pop up like a jack-in-the-box.

People ask why I've spent so much on more than 100 number plates such as B0G 1, DR4IN and W4TER, and the answer is they give people a fun reason to look out for and notice our vans. More recently, we have had model versions (also with different number plates) made, which are also hugely popular with our customers.

Basically, we have established what we stand for over 35 years in business and now what we are doing (apart doing great plumbing, building, roofing and electrical work, etc ...) is making sure people don't forget the brand that stands for a quality job, done by a fully trained, polite tradesman, in a clean corporate uniform, driving an instantly recognisable van.

It's taken a lot of years of hard work to get where we are today, and having created a premium reputation within London, it takes a lot of paying attention to detail to maintain it. But I would like to think that whenever someone needs a plumber, they recall seeing S1NK drive past the other day, and think: "I've heard a lot of good things about Pimlico Plumbers, I'm going to give them a call!"